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Dump the Haj subsidy

Dump the Haj subsidy

Author: Editorial
Publication: The Economic Times
Date: September 18, 2004
URL: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/854931.cms

The government should dump the Haj subsidy, rather than expand its benefit to income-tax payers, as proposed by minister of state for home Sriprakash Jaiswal.

A secular State has no business subsidising religious pilgrimage. Further, it offers no real benefit to Muslim pilgrims - the 'subsidised' rate they pay is probably higher than what commercial operators would charge for an assured supply of such large volumes of travellers.

At the same time, the subsidy patronises the pilgrims and becomes an instrumentality of votebank politics. The only gainers from the subsidy are the votaries of communal politics.

Indira Gandhi introduced the Haj subsidy as a temporary measure after the oil crisis of the '70s and it should have been phased out a long time ago.

In fact, Parliament's Standing Committee on External Affairs had time and again raised the issue of reducing Haj subsidy and abolishing it eventually during the Narasimha Rao regime in the early nineties.

The Expenditure Reforms Commission in its tenth report submitted in September 2001 had also suggested that steps should be taken to end subsidy on charter flights for Haj. The Union Cabinet then decided in September 2003 to limit subsidy for Haj pilgrims to once in a lifetime. Further, income-tax payers would not be entitled to any subsidy.

Interestingly, no Islamic country offers any subsidy for Haj pilgrims. Pakistan used to, for a while, until the Lahore High Court banned the practice. For, it is against Islamic theology to be obligated to anyone for performing Haj.

Haj is obligatory only for those who can afford the costs involved in its performance. In fact, enlightened Muslim leaders in India have been advocating the reduction and eventual abolition of Haj subsidies.

Such subsidies benefit only a minuscule number (only about 70,000 Hajees and the Haj committee members gain) but 140 million Muslims have to pay a heavy political price for it. The nation can do without it even though Jaiswal may find it useful to woo UP Muslims away from the Samajwadi Party.
 


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